No intros needed when Spurs, Heat meet in NBA Finals

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MIAMI — Early this week, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich joked he had gotten so bored waiting for the start of the NBA Finals that he started watching “one of those island” shows — like “Survivor” — on television.

But eventually, Popovich got around to some really meaningless viewing fare.

Popovich admits he did watch tape of his team’s two regular-season losses to the Miami Heat — one with his Big Three missing, the other with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade out for the Heat.

Reality TV

He can’t say he got much out of it.

“You watch as much as you can, because you have 10 days,” Popovich said Tuesday after the Spurs’ final practice before heading to South Florida. “You’ve got time to watch all kinds of stuff. Enough to really screw it up.”

What Popovich saw will have little bearing on what happens when the Finals tip off in Game 1 on Thursday at American Airlines Arena.

“They don’t really have much to do with anything we are working on,” Popovich said.

The Spurs, four-time NBA champions, and the Heat, defending league titlists, meet this week as virtual strangers. In a way, pregame introductions will be just that (“LeBron, Timmy. Timmy, LeBron”).

South Beach summit

Since James famously took his talents to South Beach in the summer of 2010, bringing Chris Bosh to team with Wade to form an Eastern Conference superpower, the Spurs have faced the Heat with both teams at full strength twice.

Both meetings came in March 2011, with the teams swapping 30-point victories on their home floor within 10 days of each other.

“It was a little wild that we (the stars) weren’t playing when we played each other this year,” Wade said. “And it’s crazy that it worked out this way that we are both in the Finals.”

During a lockout-shortened 2011-12 season, the teams met just once in Miami. The Heat, without Wade, beat the Spurs without Manu Ginobili by 22 points.

This season, Popovich famously opted to send stars Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Ginobili and starting shooting guard Danny Green home for rest before a nationally televised Nov. 29 game at Miami.

Sparked by their reserves, the Spurs led deep into the fourth quarter before falling 105-100. That didn’t stop NBA commissioner David Stern from fining the Spurs $250,000 for what he said was “a disservice to the league.”

Miami coach Erik Spoelstra returned the favor in the Heat’s March 31 trip to the AT&T Center, sitting James and Wade. The Heat won 88-86 behind 23 points and a late 3-pointer from Bosh.

Though the teams are hardly familiar with each other at full strength, as title contenders, they have watched each other from across the NBA bracket for some time.

Earned respect

“That’s a hell of a team over there,” Wade said. “We’re going to have to make adjustments every game, throughout the series.

“We’re going to see something different that we ain’t seen. That’s in every series, you have to make adjustments.”

The Spurs have seen enough of the Heat to foment what Popovich likes to call “appropriate fear” of their Finals opponent.

That’s despite an uneven performance in an Eastern Conference finals against the Indiana Pacers that Miami did not settle until Game 7 on Monday night.

Asked if the Heat look vulnerable — especially with Wade and Bosh struggling through some of the worst postseasons of their careers — Duncan would not take the bait.

“I’ll know that when they stand in front of us,” Duncan said. “But as of right now they’re the defending champs and they’re still the best team in the regular season.”

In lieu of film of his team’s two non-telling meetings with Miami this season, Popovich on Tuesday showed the Spurs tape of the Heat playing other teams.

Even watching on their own, players found the seven games of the Eastern Conference finals to be instructive.

Few secrets

Green’s take: “Miami has an extra gear that comes and goes. They are a mismatch problem for any team, and I think the world knows that.”

Even in San Antonio, where James is a rumor, it turns out the Heat are a known commodity.